Faced with an increasingly difficult challenge in growing both average revenue per user (ARPU) and numbers of subscribers, wireless carriers are trying to develop a host of new products, services, and business models based on data services. One such service is location-based services (LBS), which provide information specific to a location including actual locations of a user. It is expected that location-based services will generate additional business for the carrier, from both the mobile user and content providers.
For the mobile user as well as the service provider, location-based services offer many opportunities. For example, location-based services can increase revenue of the service provider, e.g., network carrier, while improving services to end users, e.g., mobile users. Some examples of location-based services that can be provided to the mobile user include:                Providing the nearest business or service, such as an ATM or restaurant;        Providing alerts, such as notification of a sale on gas or warning of a traffic jam;        Providing weather reports which are germane to the location where the user is using the mobile device (e.g., cellular telephone, smart phone, personal digital assistant, laptop computer, notebook computer, etc.); and/or        Providing messages to end users, e.g., recipients, etc.        
For the network carrier, location-based services provide value add by enabling services such as:                Resource tracking with dynamic distribution (e.g., taxis, service people, rental equipment, doctors, fleet scheduling, etc.);        Finding people or information for the user (e.g., person by skill (doctor), business directory, navigation, weather, traffic, room schedules, stolen phone, emergency 911);        Proximity-based notification (push or pull) (e.g., targeted advertising, buddy list, common profile matching (dating), automatic airport check-in); and        Proximity-based actuation (push or pull) (e.g., payment based upon proximity (EZ pass, toll watch).        
In addition, location-based services are convenient for sharing location data and other information between mobile devices to mobile devices and from mobile devices to stationary devices like a home computer or stationary tracking system or content provider, etc. This would allow a third party to determine an exact location of a mobile user such as, for example, a family member, friend, employee, etc.
Two methods are commonly in use to determine the location of a mobile device: cell tower based methods, and global positioning system (GPS) based methods. Cell tower based methods determine a mobile device's location by comparing the signal strength of one or more cell towers that are near the mobile device. When three or more towers are used, this method is called cell tower triangulation. A single tower may be used, but results in a less accurate determination of the device location. GPS based methods also use triangulation, but utilize satellites instead of cell towers to determine a device location.
Mobile devices typically utilize a wireless Internet connection to transmit their location data (e.g., GPS location data) to a computing device associated with the location-based services, e.g., a location-based services system. For example, devices commonly utilize a wireless network (e.g., GSM (2G), UMTS (3G), etc.) that is capable of handling Internet communication and a suitable web service (e.g., Parlay X) to send location data to the location-based service system. However, there are times when a mobile device has a cellular signal and/or GPS signal, but cannot establish an Internet connection. As such, there are times when a mobile device can obtain new location data (e.g., via tower(s) or GPS), but cannot relay that location data to the location-based service system via wireless Internet.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.